Human Resources Committee on Oct. 6th, 2011

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

There are 1,900. Okay.

I have another question on the numbers.

Out of the number of people who get their credentials recognized in Canada, do you have any sense of how many find work in their field?

[Brendan Walsh]

Unfortunately, that varies very much by profession, as you can imagine. Some of the professions, frankly, aren't doing as well in that regard. I think medical laboratory technologists have a very low success rate when it comes to internationally trained applicants passing the exam and becoming licensed. It's in the range of about 10%.

This really speaks to the types of improvements we're trying to make with the FQR framework in working with those regulators to find out what the gaps are and where are people falling down along the pathway to licensure, so that we can introduce some improvements that would help increase that—

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

Is there an easy way to get at those numbers, or do you have to go to each--

[Brendan Walsh]

The numbers are kept by each provincial regulatory body and not all of them keep the stats. But one of the things Jean-François mentioned earlier is that we are trying to work with provinces through the framework to look at some ways of doing this very broad reporting. How can we answer some of these fundamental questions, such as, are we making improvements with the framework? We're certainly seeing a lot of—

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

That's a pretty important question. It sounds like people are putting a lot of effort into that and doing a tremendous amount of work, but if the results aren't being shown on the ground, that's an important point.

I have another numbers question.

I wanted to go back to the “Recognizing Success” report from November 2009. On page six of that report, which I don't expect you to have, one of the witnesses indicated—and I know I've heard this from people in my riding who have come to Canada and have some sort of professional accreditation from their country of origin—that only 10% of applicants had received their credentials before they came to the country.

Do you have any sense of how many people are now getting their credentials recognized before they actually come into the country? I know you have your two-day orientation session, which gives people all kinds of information, but World Education Services appears to be saying that some people are getting their credentials recognized even before they come into the country.

Do you have a sense if there's been any improvement on this 10% number?

[Brendan Walsh]

The number that's referred to there are for those people who have had their academic credentials assessed. WES is an organization that assesses just the educational credentials of applicants; it doesn't speak to their ability to be licensed. That is a very important first step in the process to become licensed. One of the first things regulatory bodies want to know is how does someone's international training compare to that in Canada?

To get their credentials assessed before they arrive in Canada is very important, and something that we're trying to encourage our immigrants to do, because that gives them a much better sense or a reality check, which I think another member was speaking about earlier.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

How are the credentials recognized before people get into Canada?

[Brendan Walsh]

Applicants can certainly begin to have their academic credentials assessed either through an organization like WES, which provides generic assessment, or sometimes by the profession that actually does licensing for that profession. It's something that we're working to achieve with the regulatory bodies.

How many of these licensing steps can actually begin in this pre-arrival state? That's of particular interest to our department.

[Jean Crowder, NDP, Nanaimo—Cowichan, BC]

This is probably more of a comment, but there are educators involved in setting standards. There are regulators, and then there are professional organizations. In your experience, are all three of those groups included in planning and the processes around foreign credential recognition?

[Jean-François LaRue]

Certainly.

Through the national consultation, we've conducted priority occupations. We have made sure to cover all of those bases. As I said, we want all of the players on the ice, and we make sure that we've covered our bases.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you. Your time is up.

Do you have a couple of short questions?

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Yes, I do, Chair. I could share a question with Mr. Daniel, here.

If I owned an engineering firm—and here I want to get to what Mr. McColeman said—and I want to recruit engineers from Ireland, I can do that through immigration. Can I not go and do my recruiting and work with those people? I can understand that the Government of Canada has to be impartial. You allow immigrants to come in with different credentials, but as an employer, if I need engineers and I want them from a certain country or countries, can I do that through immigration?

[Brendan Walsh]

One of the ways that immigrants can come to Canada is through something like an arranged employment offer or through the provincial nominee program. We haven't talked about that much, but the provincial nominee program is a way that provinces can tell us that they are looking for very specific numbers of people to work for employers. They have that ability to bring people in to work for specific employers to meet their needs.

[Colin Mayes, Conservative, Okanagan—Shuswap, BC]

Right. I am from British Columbia, and I know they have been very active in doing that in British Columbia. So that's where I'm coming from.

So that's your answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

In Saskatchewan, they're very active at that as well.

Mr. Daniel, would you like to finish with a couple of short questions?

[Joe Daniel, Conservative, Don Valley East, ON]

Okay. I'll ask just one question.

We have a lot of temporary workers coming here. Is the same assessment of their abilities done before they come?

[Jean-François LaRue]

I'm sorry, I am really not an expert on the temporary foreign worker program, so I would be speaking out of my depth here. We can get back to you with an answer in writing to that specific question.

I think Mr. Walsh could answer part of the question.

[Brendan Walsh]

For temporary foreign workers, an arrangement is made with employers. So it all depends on the type of workers that employers are bringing in. Many of the temporary foreign workers in Canada now are working in less-skilled occupations, where it is less critical to have a real assessment of their competencies.

[The Chair, Conservative, Ed Komarnicki]

Thank you. Our time is up.

I know it's a very interesting area, but we're going to adjourn. Thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned.